“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As the physical time passed, however, I began wanting to do a little formal writing about Jane’s death, so last month when Jim Young of Stillpoint Publishing gave me the chance to do so in this Preface for Seth, Dreams … I accepted at once.

“To me,” Jim wrote, “it would be a special opportunity for you to make whatever statement you might wish about Jane and her work. It would also be nice for the many readers of Jane’s books to have a chance to hear from her partner, who so beautifully and critically assisted in the birthing of the Seth books.

I don’t care for the term “channeling,” since I think it too all-inclusive and already trite. However, I liked both Jim’s ideas of my doing the Preface for Jane’s book, and of publishing a photo of her. And Laurel Lee Davies, the young lady who’s now helping me carry on my publishing activities, at once intuitively picked out from my files the one right photograph of Jane to us for Seth, Dreams … Jane’s father, Delmer Roberts, took the snapshot when she was on vacation with him in Baja, California in 1951. She was twenty-two years old. Jane and I didn’t meet until 1954. That little picture, then, was taken some twelve years before she began “coming through” with the Seth material. Yet, I find in it all of the ingredients that made up the Jane I knew — her great beauty, personality and creativity, her love of manipulating within her physical environment; I see her “steering herself” toward extraordinary accomplishments.

As soon as I took Jim Young up on his word that I could make whatever statement I want to about Jane’s work, I knew that this Preface would contain relatively little about Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness itself, and I wrote to Jim about this. The book stands perfectly well on its own. These notes, then, will contain material not only about Jane, but my own involvement with her, her work, and her death. I trust that even though physically she’s no longer with me, my wife agrees with my choices, for she helped me learn that the one truly unique thing I have to offer the world is my own creation of it.

Jane began dictating Seth Speaks in January 1970. In March, Tam signed her to a contract for Seth, Dreams … on behalf of Prentice-Hall. The Seth Material was published. Jane was on a creative roll. She kept changing and adding to the portions of Seth, Dreams … that she hadn’t used in The Seth Material, while at the same time her new work kept crowding it out. Finally, in 1971 Tam converted her contract for Seth, Dreams … into one for Seth Speaks. Jane didn’t keep on trying to sell Seth, Dreams … Neither did I, and somehow that perfectly good book ended up packed away. Tam left Prentice-Hall for other employment in 1982; he became my agent after Jane’s death in 1984. When at his request I rediscovered Seth, Dreams … three months ago, and examined it, I couldn’t believe that that finished manuscript had never been published. I’m most pleased that Jim Young accepted it at once for Stillpoint Publishing — just as I know Jane is!